I’ve gotten to the finish, now I just have to circle back and write the Big Scene.
The wine was surprisingly good. Better, in fact, than most of what was available in all but the highest circles of Paris. He took a measured sip nonetheless. “I take it then, your Grace, that what you truly want to hear is always to be the truth?”
That seemed to amuse the man, oddly. “Do I look like a saint, Citizen Fouché? I assure you, I am a man like any other. Sometimes I must be flattered; other times, gently checked. A very few times, I might even need to be nudged. But I cannot abide being lied to.” The duke drank from his own glass, as carefully as Joseph did. “Those in my service would do well to remember that.”
Not ‘the King’s service,’ Joseph noted. Then again, he is married to Princess Collette, and the King has no other heir. “Forgive my presumption, your Grace, but I believe that I will. Or at least, I will, once you have decided to give me a position of sufficient trust to make my memory relevant.”
“Smart,” murmured the duke. “Normally I’d put you somewhere quiet and out of the way for six months until you got bored enough to attract my notice, but we have just finished smashing every army that stood between us and Paris. I do like having the enemy tell me just where and when his troops will be marching. It simplifies planning amazingly — but never mind that, right now. The fee still held by the Revolutionaries will spin whatever lies they need to in order to obscure our advance, until it is too late. The capital is disorganized and in the grips of an undisciplined mob, anyway: I do not expect one whiff of grapeshot will resolve matters, but four or five should do. In the end we will take Paris, and we will crown Adam at Reims, in the old and proper style.”
